The Choice
by sokolski
Summary: She always looked at him, when she reached the brink between this world and the next, when the pain was a yawning pit of despair...


He couldn't take this much longer.

An angel lay twisted and broken before him, screaming her pain to the world. The eyes of the Dark Lord were flaming hell pits as they stared down at the witch who refused to be broken, after all these weeks.

Her back was a mass of white scar tissue, and it looked like someone had cut wings out of her flesh. Her hair was dark, not only because she had been kept from the sun, but because it was matted with dark fluids.

She twisted in agony at another lazy flick of his Lord's wand.

And finally she reached that point. That point on the edge of this world and the next. And that's when she looked at him. That's when she always looked at him, and he wanted to drown in her eyes, to die so he couldn't see this pain any longer.

The sound that suddenly split the air was harsh and unforgiving. The Dark Lord looked at Draco, and gestured for him to take her away.

"Bring her back in three days. She _will_ break." Draco bowed his head in obedience, and levitated the body of Hermione Granger back to her cell.

She woke to soft hands cradling her head, rubbing salve into a gash on her cheek. It was him. She closed her eyes. She couldn't bear to look at him any longer, this boy who she had known for so long, this boy who let her red blood run freely, and looked at it with a face void of emotion.

It hurt Draco when she closed her eyes. He felt a pang deep in his chest. How could he expect her to look at him? Her broken body in his hands felt like the heaviest burden in the world. His heart was screaming, but he couldn't make out the words.

"Hermione," he whispered, willing her to open those eyes, to say something, anything…

"Don't call me that." It was feeble, but it was her voice, and it came out of cracked and bloodied lips. Draco bowed his head in shame as he traced his fingers over her deepest scar. He had given it to her, shortly after she arrived, on the dark Lord's orders. He could still feel the vibrations of her scream, as he introduced her to horrors, her worst nightmares, and pain so deep it seemed unfathomable.

Her body was shaking. He had tried to heal her, to prepare her for her next meeting with Him, but some of her wounds were too deep to heal in just three days. And physical pain wasn't all she had to endure.

"Two hours," he spoke softly as he laid her back on a mat. "I will come for you in two hours." He left with a swish of his robes. Her silence made him want to scream.

True to his word, Draco returned to her. His eyes held a new expression, however. They were still tortured, still haunted, but there was a hard flint of determination in their deepest recesses. She looked up at him wordlessly, so lost in her own misery that she didn't notice the change. He reached out, and cut a piece of hair from her head. He then handed her a potion.

"Drink this." Hermione eyed it warily, but she was too tired to think, and she knew there should be a reason for her not to trust him but in the haze of pain and the darkly twisted alleys of her reality she couldn't recall why.

He watched as she gulped it down, choking and spluttering. She was the same for a moment, and looked at him questioningly. Then her mouth formed an O of surprise as her body began to change. It was painful, but nothing to what she had endured.

Draco looked at her, the mirror image of herself. She was staring at her hands in wonder, pain free for the first time in as long as she could remember. Draco handed her his wand.

"Do exactly what you see me do every time we visit the Dark Lord. Afterwards, take us back to this place." She looked at him again, uncomprehending, until he took out another potion and held it to his lips before dropping in a piece of her hair.

Before her eyes, Draco changed. He changed into something she could only recognize because of the whimpers of pain resounding around the tiny cell. A bruised and broken girl lay where Draco had stood only moments before, and Hermione was seeing what she looked like to the world.

Hermione reached out to touch him, but her own voice rasped back at her. "We must go. Now." She nodded in understanding and led Draco through the dark corridors to the room of a slit-eyed monster.

Hermione stood transfixed, watching as her body was tortured beyond belief. Draco was screaming, writhing on the floor, and she saw blood pouring from his eyes, although they were brown and sadly familiar. The Dark Lord was smiling. She felt like she was going to be sick.

The torment lasted for hours, and he took all of it. Hermione watched as the body before her absorbed all of the pain that was meant for her. She watched as Draco's arms were broken, his toes cut off, only to have them healed in order to start the process all over again. She watched as his stomach was cut open, and his guts wrenched out, once again to see him quickly healed and the process repeated.

He was not allowed to lose consciousness. That was her job. She was forced to train a wand on him the entire time, ensuring that he could not escape from the pain.

The Dark Lord seemed furious, angrier than Hermione had ever seen him.

"I have had enough with this Mudblood!" He kicked Draco roughly, and Hermione watched his body (her body) bend in all the wrong places as Draco whimpered incoherently.

"Draco! Take her away. I never want to see her in my sight again. Do what you will to her." Hermione bowed her head low to the ground, and somehow made herself levitate the broken body on the floor, walking from the room without a sound.

Draco woke to pain. Pain everywhere, and more pain, as he felt the Polyjuice Potion finally wearing off. His body resumed its' normal shape, but it kept every gash, every ounce of pain he had just received. Hermione was holding him in her arms, looking at him in wonder. He reached up and stroked her cheek.

"This is your chance," he whispered. "He said I can do what I want with you. I'm going to set you free." Tears welled unexpectedly in Hermione's eyes. This boy, no this man, who had taken her pain, was now offering what she wanted most in the entire world, even as he lay bleeding in her arms after a punishment that was meant for her alone. "Go Hermione. Your wand is in my desk. Whisper the word angel and it will unlock."

Tears fell from her face to linger on Draco's chest, mixing with the blood to form a dusty pink. "Why…" she began to ask, not understanding him, how he could just let her go, how he had so willingly sacrificed himself for her.

"Don't ask, my beautiful one. But go now, before I change my mind. Go!" He yelled, spittle flying from his mouth. She touched his cheek reverntly and slowly left his side, backing away into darkness. Draco closed his eyes. He had done it. His angel was free. Free to soar into the sky and never feel the pain again…

And as her wings spread, Draco's heart broke, and the pain in that small cell, the pain that came with the realization that she was gone, that he was alone, hurt greater than anything he had ever known.

But he didn't care. Because she was free.


End file.
